Published: February 12, 2013
BEIJING — In the aftermath of Tuesday’s nuclear test by North Korea, China will almost certainly join the United States in supporting tougher sanctions at the United Nations, accompanied by sterner reprimands from Beijing against its recalcitrant ally in Pyongyang.
But as impatient as China might be with North Korea, there is little chance that the new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, will move quickly to change the nation’s long-held policy of propping up the walled-off government that has long served as a buffer against closer intrusion by the United States on the Korean Peninsula.
“North Korea’s nuclear test will make the new Xi Jinping
administration angry, and give China a headache.”
The Chinese military, and to a lesser extent the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party, assert strong influence on China’s Korean policy, and both these powerful entities prefer to keep North Korea close at hand, Chinese and American analysts say.
While the People’s Liberation Army does not even conduct military exercises with the North Koreans — the government in the North forbids such contact with outsiders — Chinese military strategists adhere to the doctrine that they cannot afford to abandon their ally, no matter how bad its
behavior, analysts here say.
At the same time, the Chinese Communist Party looks upon the North Korean Communist Party — led by Kim Jong-un, the grandson of the nation’s founder — as a fraternal brotherhood. Indeed, relations between the two countries are conducted largely between the two parties rather than through
the more normal diplomatic channels between the two foreign ministries.
But within this basic contour there could be some adjustments by Mr. Xi, according to Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Peking University, an advocate of a tougher policy by China against North Korea.
“One nuclear test will not make China’s new administration decide to ‘abandon North Korea’ but it will definitely worsen China-North Korea relations,” Professor Zhu wrote in a recent article in the Straits Times of Singapore. “North Korea’s nuclear test will make the new Xi Jinping
administration angry, and give China a headache.”
Mr. Xi, who became head of the Communist Party and military council in November, will ascend to the presidency of the country next month. Already he has shown himself to be more nationalistic than his predecessor, Hu Jintao, displaying China’s determination to prevail in the East China Sea crisis
in which China is seeking to wrest control of islands administered by Japan. He has also displayed considerably more interest in China’s military, visiting bases and troops in the last two months with blandishments to soldiers to be combat ready.
To improve China’s strained relationship with the United States, Mr. Xi could start with getting tougher on North Korea, harnessing China’s clout with the outlier government to help slow down its nuclear program. If Mr. Xi does not help in curbing the North Koreans, perhaps by privately
threatening to pull the plug on infusions of Chinese oil and investments that keep North Korea afloat, he will almost certainly face an accelerated American ballistic missile defense program in Northeast Asia on behalf of Japan and other allies in the region. That would be an unpalatable situation
for China.
The Obama administration excoriated Mr. Hu after North Korea’s second nuclear test in 2009, accusing him of “willful blindness” to that country’s actions.
“With Hu out of the picture, the administration is intent on determining whether Xi Jinping will prove more attentive to U.S. security concerns,” said
Jonathan D. Pollack, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution.
“How Xi chooses to respond will be an important early signal of his foreign policy priorities and whether he is ready to cooperate much more openly and fully with Washington and Seoul than his predecessor,” he said, referring to South Korea.
A more heightened debate about North Korea is now swirling around China’s foreign policy circles. On one side are those like Professor Zhu who favor some kind of co-operation with the United States in curbing North Korea’s nuclear program. On the other side are the traditionalists in powerful
positions in the army and the party who adhere to the buffer zone theory.
“A lot of people are taking the very old-fashioned belief that North Korea is a strategic buffer,” said Jia Qingguo, a professor at Peking University’s School of International Studies who is also proponent of a new policy toward North Korea. “They still believe American invaders would march over
North Korea to come to China.”
Professor Jia, who visited Washington last month, said China should use wayward North Korea as a starting point for a more cooperative relationship with the United States. “One option is North Korea,” he said. “We have to work together to stop it becoming a nuclear power.”
Professor Zhu said Chinese news media accounts stressing the need for punishing North Korea in a more meaningful way were an encouraging sign.
“They are quite rare signals, and I don’t recall any moment during the past 10 years that Beijing unequivocally and forcefully spoke up against Pyongyang’s nuclear tricks,” he said.
But for all China’s distaste for North Korea — culturally and politically the two governments stand far apart — China should remain a firm ally of North Korea, said Stephanie T. Kleine-Ahlbrandt, North East Asia director and China adviser for the International Crisis Group in Beijing.
“The political relationship between China and North Korea right now is at a low point, but China’s longstanding priorities on the Korean Peninsula of no war, no instability and no nukes remain in that order of priority,” she said.
China was prepared to live with a nuclear North Korea as long as the arsenal remained small and its nuclear status did not result in an arms race, she said.
But the third nuclear test takes take North Korea another step closer to a nuclear weapon that can reach the United States, even though that accomplishment may be years away, said Siegfried S. Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and co-director of the Center for
International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.
He visited North Korea two years ago and was shown the country’s uranium enrichment facilities.
“Threatening a missile-capable warhead with a successful third nuclear test gives the United States, South Korea and Japan good reason to step up their regional ballistic missile defense capabilities,” Mr. Hecker said. “That should give the Chinese government some pause.”
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